Administrators cleared in tainted-blood
case

ANDRÉ PICARD

From Tuesday's Globe and
Mail

October 2, 2007 at
10:38 AM EDT

A Toronto judge has not only acquitted
senior administrators of the blood system of all criminal
charges in the tainted-blood tragedy, she has suggested they
were utterly innocent and never should have been charged in the
first place.

In a forcefully written judgment, Madam
Justice Mary Lou Benotto of the Ontario Superior Court said that
the accused acted professionally and reasonably in the face of a
bedevilling public-health problem, and that the horrific
infection of hemophiliacs with HIV-AIDS was not their fault.

"The events here were tragic. However,
to assign blame where none exists is to compound the tragedy,"
she said.

Victims of tainted blood reacted with
seething disbelief. "People were infected and people died. How
that could possibly be considered reasonable behaviour is beyond
us," John Plater of the Canadian Hemophilia Society said outside
the courthouse, his voice rising in anger.

Mike McCarthy, who contracted hepatitis
C from tainted blood, went further, saying the judgment was a
"miscarriage of justice." He called on the Crown attorney to
appeal the acquittals.

But David Scott, a lawyer for a senior
Health Canada official who was acquitted, said "these charges
should never have been laid. It was a mistake from the beginning
and people's lives have been brutally affected by them."

Eddie Greenspan, lawyer for the former
head of the Red Cross blood program, described the ruling as
"absolute vindication and complete exoneration" on a scale that
is rarely seen. "The bottom line is that there was no criminal
conduct by anyone who was in charge. The bottom line is that
Canada was well served by people who made these decisions."

"How that could possibly be considered
reasonable behaviour is beyond us."

Defence lawyers said that, given the
exoneration, they will seek to have the legal fees of the
accused reimbursed and may even launch lawsuits for malicious
prosecution.

The case before the court related to one
specific incident in the larger tainted-blood tragedy — the
infection of seven young B.C. hemophiliacs with HIV-AIDS.

They all used Factorate, a blood product
manufactured by Armour, a pharmaceutical company based in
Bridgewater, N.J.

The drug was heat-treated to kill
pathogens like HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but the process
did not work.

The criminal charges allege that the
accused knew the product, which was distributed between July,
1986, and December, 1987, was potentially tainted and failed to
act to prevent its distribution and to warn recipients of the
danger.

Judge Benotto said that, to secure a
conviction of criminal negligence, the Crown needed to
demonstrate that the accused showed a wanton and reckless
disregard for the lives and safety of users. On the common
nuisance charge, the Crown needed to show that their actions
deviated from what a reasonable person would do in the
circumstances.

The judge said that, on the contrary,
the "evidence taken as a whole establishes a thoughtful, careful
and considered course of conduct" on the part of the accused.

But Judge Benotto went further, saying
that a mere acquittal would be to damn the accused with faint
praise. "The allegations of criminal conduct on the part of
these men and this corporation were not only unsupported by the
evidence, they were disproved."

The accused were Roger Perrault, former
director of the Canadian Red Cross Society's blood-transfusion
service; John Furesz, former director of the Bureau of Biologics
at Health Canada; Wark Boucher, former chief of the
blood-products division of the Bureau of Biologics; Michael
Rodell, former vice-president of scientific and regulatory
affairs at Armour; and the company itself.

They all faced four counts each of
criminal negligence causing bodily harm and one count each of
common nuisance endangering the public. Armour faced an
additional charge under the Food and Drug Act for failing to
give notice of a product deficiency.

Dr. Perrault faces six more criminal
charges in another case slated for trial in Hamilton. Defence
lawyers hinted that, based on Monday's ruling, they will ask for
those charges to be dismissed.

Victims of tainted blood said the
acquittals were, more than anything, an indictment of the
Canadian justice system.

"How do you, in Canada, bring to justice
people who have caused the deaths of hundreds, thousands of
people?" Beaty, who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood,
said Monday as he choked back tears. "Canadians should not sleep
too well tonight because our justice system has been found
wanting."

In November, 2002, the RCMP laid 32
criminal charges against four individuals, a pharmaceutical
company and the Red Cross in connection with tainted blood.

The Red Cross, as an organization,
pleaded guilty to distributing contaminated blood in violation
of the Food and Drug Act. It was fined $5,000 and six criminal
charges were dropped.

You (Ottawa Mens
Centre.com, from Ottawa - Home of family court
flagrant abusers of judicial POWER., Canada) wrote:
Madam Justice Mary Lou Benotto got it
right, did it right in what was not only a political
motivated prosecution for political purposes but an
"exoneration" also with as a result of political
pressure. It is so exceedingly rare that a Judge
makes a mention of "exhoneration" in their decisions
that it is a warning bell. Just why to these
defendants deserve to have the foundation of a
malicious prosecution put on their platter while
tens of thousands of other accused are equally
innocent and are also politically motivated
"malicious" and "vexatious" prosecutions. Take the
Ste. Saint Marie Police who prosecuted a 75 year old
Jim Townsend with criminal harassment laid on behalf
of a well known local lawyer by the name of Jeffrey
D. Broadbent. You see, Mr. Broadbent purchased a
house from one of his clients, a client who lost in
court over a dispute over a laneway. Mr. Broadbent
could not get over it and provided fabricated
evidence to the police who laid the charge and had
it heard by none other than Justice Richard Lajoie
from the Timmins Ontario Court of Justice who found
him guilty, all with that very good powerful
political name as the complainant. Justice Richard
Lajoie made a political decision of guilty. That
decision was thrown overturned at the Ontario Court
of Appeal. Mr James Townsend then filed suit for
Malicious prosecution and lost. He should have sued
for abuse of process, his lawyer's poor decision.
The Ste. Sault Marie Police then tried to take his
wife's family home. A local Ste. Saint Marie Police
officer used his friends in the local gym to have
Mr. Jim Townsend thrown out by using a couple of his
young lady friends to make "a complaint". The
Ontario Government has made the test for a malicious
prosecution exceedingly high and its for a purpose.
The local police in many a Canadian town lay
malicious politically motivated criminal charges as
a way of conducting business. Visit
www.permitted-purgery.com and read the rest of the
story

Retribution and revenge seems to be the modern simple and old fashioned way
of getting "justice". Modern theoretical law has other more logical common sense
ideas that resolve the issues and provide appropriate remedies that victims may
often leave victims without closure. Victims do not deserve "closure" at the
expense of injustice. Every day someone in Canada is probably wrongfully
convicted based on the political forces that caused a charge to be laid. Police
frequently act like a Pizza Delivery Business and lay charges to satisfy a local
identity or local business. The fact that it costs the victim thousands in legal
costs and lost reputation means nothing because the threshhold for a law suit
for malicious, vexatious or abuse of process is way way too high. Its so high
that only the rich can afford to litigate it and the police probably would not
have risked laying the malicious charges if the victim was "well to do" and had
the means to sue them later. Police frequently use that as a factor in deciding
if to lay charges.

The same goes in an "investigation". All to often the investigation is
nothing but a one sided view with deliberate avoidance of the evidence that
showed the complainant was in fact the person who committed criminal offences.
Back in 1973 the secretary to the local legal aid lawyer was murdered in Timmins
Ontario. The secretary was none other than Mrs. Harwood. The police announced
that it "must have been a vagrant" "an out of towner". The husband of Mrs.
Harwood was none other than then Constable Joe Harwood. No witness in their
right mind would have come forward in Timmins to volunteer information and
indeed the investigation came up with diddly sqat. Joe Harwood later became the
chief of the local police and got along fine with a Constable Paul Bonhomme who
is in at least one civil document that indicates him as a perjurer. Bonhomme
also committed perjury in 1998 to have a local critic charged with perjury.
www.OttawaMensCentre.com

Our comments in the Globe and Mail

October 2, 2007

You (Ottawa Mens
Centre.com, from Ottawa - Home of family court
flagrant abusers of judicial POWER., Canada) wrote:
Retribution and revenge seems to be the
modern simple and old fashioned way of getting
"justice". Modern theoretical law has other more
logical common sense ideas that resolve the issues
and provide appropriate remedies that victims may
often leave victims without closure. Victims do not
deserve "closure" at the expense of injustice. Every
day someone in Canada is probably wrongfully
convicted based on the political forces that caused
a charge to be laid. Police frequently act like a
Pizza Delivery Business and lay charges to satisfy a
local identity or local business. The fact that it
costs the victim thousands in legal costs and lost
reputation means nothing because the threshhold for
a law suit for malicious, vexatious or abuse of
process is way way too high. Its so high that only
the rich can afford to litigate it and the police
probably would not have risked laying the malicious
charges if the victim was "well to do" and had the
means to sue them later. Police frequently use that
as a factor in deciding if to lay charges. The same
goes in an "investigation". All to often the
investigation is nothing but a one sided view with
deliberate avoidance of the evidence that showed the
complainant was in fact the person who committed
criminal offences. Back in 1973 the secretary to the
local legal aid lawyer was murdered in Timmins
Ontario. The secretary was none other than Mrs.
Harwood. The police announced that it "must have
been a vagrant" "an out of towner". The husband of
Mrs. Harwood was none other than then Constable Joe
Harwood. No witness in their right mind would have
come forward in Timmins to volunteer information and
indeed the investigation came up with diddly sqat.
Joe Harwood later became the chief of the local
police and got along fine with a Constable Paul
Bonhomme who is in at least one civil document that
indicates him as a perjurer. Bonhomme also committed
perjury in 1998 to have a local critic charged with
perjury. www.OttawaMensCentre.com